>>>I hope that he enjoys his stay.
>
>You ignored the point- which is that the modern rich can up sticks and relocate with relative ease, e.g. if landed with a 70% tax.
>
No I didn't. NYC has the highest combined tax rates in the US. There are waiting lists for condos costing over $20 million.



>>>This Queens native takes great pride in the rejection by the working people of Queens of Amazon's proposed move to Long Island City in Queens, NYC
>
>a) You're not the person missing out on the job, so that's big of you- and
>



>b) At least your citation makes more sense that protestations that the $3B for Amazon now can be spent on other things. But the deal was that Amazon would get a rebate of $3B off anticipated $30B tax- meaning it would only pay $27B. But there is and never was a $3B to spend elsewhere and now there's $0B.
>

Now who's missing the point?

This was about a lot more than taxes.

Long Island city has been struggling for decades, and successfully of late, to make a comeback from the devastating losses of manufacturing jobs during the 1970's and 1980's.
Several years ago some forward looking NYC companies saw the excellent work force there and moved large business segments there.
One of the old factories has become a thriving movie production studio.
Some manufacturing has started to trickle back and unemployment is below the national average.

Queens is one of the last NYC boroughs that has not been gentrified and still offers housing for working people. Brooklyn is fast becoming unaffordable, as are some sections of the Bronx.

Amazon was going to build a tech campus for high paying tech jobs.
Those aren't the jobs Queens needs. The NYC region already has huge demand for those jobs.
Look around at what has happened to housing costs in cities that have been invaded by tech firms that pay high tech salaries.
People are leaving Ca because they can't afford to live there.
When I was in Austin, Tx last year one Uber driver was an ICU nurse who had to Uber to pay her rent.

In ten years, Long Island City would have been rendered unaffordable.

The activists opposing this - among other things- wanted Amazon to fund low income housing and schools and Amazon balked.










>Certainly I have to LOL at reporters who convert this into the irrelevancy that it makes no difference nationally. Yes, but it would have meant $24B for NY that faces a deficit after other wealthy people moved away too.
>
>Was Amazon arrogant? Probably. And in real life, if they simply relocate to Virginia does it change the national economy? No.
>
>But what it does show- again- is how the wealthy behave when crossed. They'll relocate themselves as easily as they offshored millions of blue collar jobs for personal profit.
>
>Meanwhile, perhaps NYers hoping for high paying jobs now know how it felt when insulated coasters shrugged and pointed at lower prices when the industrial interior was eviscerated.